Forget Me Not
by dodopod
Summary: Nami has lived in Forget-me-not Valley for close to two years now, but now that her father lost his job, she'll either have to find one of her own or leave the valley.


Autopilot carried Nami home from a hard day of booze and friends and friends that were booze. Behind her was the way-too-nice boy, Jack — or uhh — Mark! That was it. She swerved into the door, opening it with a finesse not fitting the time of night or her blood's alcohol content. As she did, she stopped in her tracks a moment and blinked, so her eyes could adjust to the unfathomably intense light of the inn.

It all came into — mostly — focus, but one spot was still bright even if she blinked. Mark's footsteps stopped behind her — he was probably about to ask her if something was wrong, her standing stock still in the doorway like that. Of course there wasn't, she just had to walk towards the light and find out what it was. The front desk got bigger in front of her, and she saw the bright spot was a white square with some writing on it. She picked it up, and the writing came into focus — she knew that name from somewhere, Na -mi. Of course she couldn't forget her own name! She knew she recognized the other one too. . . "Darn!"

She heard footsteps behind her: he's still going to ask if there's something wrong, and now he's going to be right! She turned to face him even though she knew he couldn't fix her problem (whatever it was), but on the way her eyes met a different face.

"Nami," said Tim the innkeeper, "your dad called last night."

A letter _and_ a phone-call! At least he has some energy now.

"I asked him if he wanted to talk to you, but he just said no and hung up."

Well, not that much energy. She almost admitted that she'd probably say no too if she were in his shoes, but then, what would make her call in the first place? In fact, what would make _him_ call?

"I hope everything's alright," Tim said as she probably looked worried; curse her lack of composure.

"Yeah." She said it a lot louder on the inside. "This letter," she held it up, "can I?"

"Oh yeah, that letter arrived for you," he said to her as he walked around her to behind the front desk. This sort of conversational redundancy wouldn't normally have bothered her, but the letter was probably something serious and she caught a confirmed glimpse of Mark behind her as her eyes followed Tim.

She tore open the envelope as calmly as possible for the pleasure of however many eyes were watching now, and pulled out the letter as smoothly as her slightly shaking hands would let her.

So the old man is finally out of a job? She thought it must be much worse than it sounded, somehow. "So this means. . . I need to find a job!"

It wasn't really an exclamation, she kept that part inside. Mostly. But she was panicked. She'd never worked before. Could she handle the responsibility? That didn't come out right. Was she really just a little girl inside? Of course not! She could handle a job. It'd be easy. But who was hiring?

She stared blankly at the bell on the front desk, thinking. It slowly came into focus, and a memory came back to her.

"Tim, could I work here?"

"What happened all of a sudden? Oh well, I'm sure there's a good reason; of course you can work here."

Yes! Problem solved; it only took a midnight minute of her mind. Monday morning, she'd be making meals with Tim's wife Ruby. But then she remembered the last time she tried to cook (that didn't involve a microwave, anyway). If anyone ever tried to serve her food like that, she knew what she would do with it. She could man the front desk, though. And ten seconds later, her wanderlust would take her right out the front door. That left cleaning the guest rooms. Room, I mean room: _her_ room. She pretty much already did that, and she didn't want to cheat her hosts out of several hundred G a month just for being a bit tidier.

"I'm sorry, forget I asked." Tim put on a dejected look, the two spaced apart halves of his mustache curving down above a similarly curved mouth. It was a big, friendly face on a big, friendly man, and she couldn't stand to see it like this. It was for his own good: There wasn't any real job she could do for them.

She turned away from Tim and staggered to the door. He called to her, but she kept on walking (as well as she could). She crossed Mark on the way. He'd probably want to help. He said in her head, "Why don't you come work on my farm!" This actually sounded pretty good to her conscious mind; maybe his meddling would actually come in handy for once.

"Could I?" she asked before realizing he hadn't actually said anything, "Could I work on your farm?" She may or may not have blushed a little after realizing that her image of his busybody nature might have been slightly exaggerated.

"Sure," he said with a look that made it clear her instincts were _not_ actually wrong.

A moment of relief, and then a moment of anxiety as she realized she had no idea what farming entailed. (Neither did Mark a few short months ago, but she was too drunk and tired to realize it yet.) Her visit to his farm in spring was _going_ to clear that up, before he ruined it by sticking his nose in her business. Granted, she did wander onto his property, but she's not Murrey — she wouldn't steal anything. Then again, perhaps she was being a bit harsh, not all vagrants were thieves, after all.

"Never mind, forget I said anything." She did the best imitation of marching she could do at that time of night right out the door. Her shoulder barely grazed the column holding up the second floor of the inn.

* * *

Outside the inn was dark and cold, it being midnight and winter, respectively. There were a few bright lights to the right of her, lighting up the bridge that crosses the stream near the edge of town. A few lights were in front of her: that was Mark's farm. To her left, a few streetlights. Some bright, yellow light shone from behind her: the inn, duh. She thought she saw the moon somewhere above her, and maybe some stars. None of those lights came from the bar though, presumably because it was closed for the night. Oh well, she had drunk enough already, and she really needed to think about her problems, not drown them.

Nami turned around and walked behind the inn. She could hear Tim and Mark talking inside, probably about her. The only other sounds were the crunching of her feet in the snow and the waves rushing up to the shore. She tried her best to only hear that sound. It was only a moment before she found the shoreline. At the same moment, a wave stopped approaching and held perfectly still.

She was a traveler. So how come she wasn't traveling?

When she arrived, she was just stopping by on her way to someplace called Flower Bud Village. Ruby's cooking was so good, she decided to stay another night. A few more and she'd really gotten to know Tim and Ruby. They were once both travelers like herself, and settled in Forget-me-not Valley because of all the places they'd been, this was the most idyllic.

"Yeah, it sure is beautiful," she thought to herself staring out at the wave now receding before being rebuffed against the shore.

She'd only gotten sidetracked, that's what she told herself last summer. She figured she should get going before she got too acquainted with the newcomer, Mark. And that's exactly what she tried to do.

Then what happened? She skipped breakfast so she wouldn't have to say goodbye to Tim or Ruby, meaning she was hungry even before she made it up the hill out of town. She kept walking. Just getting out of town seemed to take ages, but she was a born traveler: staying in one place would be much worse. Even in a place like Forget-me-not Valley.

For what must have been the first time in her life, she struggled to place one foot in front of the other. She couldn't get her mind off of the breakfast she'd missed out on and the lunch she was about to. When she thought she couldn't take any more walking, she looked up; the sun blinded her. She was going to Flower Bud Village, to the east. Could it really still be morning?

At that moment, she took a false step and nearly rolled down the hill. She caught herself, and saw a familiar looking building in the glare of the sun. As she continued, she noticed three figures in the road in front of the building.

"Hey, Mark, what are you doing here?" she called out to the closest figure. Then her stomach took over, "Ruby, what's to eat? I'm starving!" It was now that she began to realize her surroundings. "Why is everyone so gloomy today?"

"We found the money you left in your room — we thought you were leaving us!" Tim spoke with more emotion than was typical of him.

"I thought you weren't ever coming back!" Ruby did too. Sharp embarrassment hit Nami when she finally realized she actually meant not to.

An exhausted Mark explained how hard they'd been searching for her. Mark's heavy breathing showed that he'd tried just as hard as he said he did, however much it impaired his ability to express it.

Tim and Ruby had left during his story to prepare a celebration dinner of sorts, which made it only a little easier to explain herself. She'd forgotten her sense of direction at the first pangs of hunger. As she had to obey her wandering spirit, she also had to obey her empty stomach. Ruby's food was so good she was practically an addict.

When she finally got her dinner that night, it was just as good as her cover story had led her to believe. And that story held up until she had met complete satisfaction in the plate and looked up with eyes watering from curry spice: there were Tim and Ruby looking on her with smiling, relieved faces. She couldn't avoid realizing she loved them.

This image held itself in her mind's eye; the salt in the icy breeze made her eyes water again. She became aware that this image was somehow connected in her mind to the word "parents". A gust of air hit her face; she blinked; more tears rolled down her face.

Her real father would never be so kind. She couldn't be so vain that she thought he lost his job to spite her. Still, she cursed his name, and Tim and Ruby became her new parents; the inn (she glanced behind herself) was her home.

A wave broke against the sand, and she felt ice-cold water splash against her legs. Even with the cold, the drops felt good to her, because they wouldn't go back out to sea.


End file.
